Posted
by
samzenpuson Wednesday November 02, 2011 @07:48PM
from the customer-is-always-right dept.

snydeq writes "Advice Line's Bob Lewis discusses the difficulties IT faces in embracing the kinds of consumer technologies business users are demanding they support. 'Let's assume the consumerization of IT is the big trend many think it is. But using consumer tech in a business environment is a very different matter from being satisfied with consumer tech in a business environment. One of IT's legitimate gripes is that we're often asked to turn consumer-grade technology into business-grade technology with a wave of our magic wands. On top of the intrinsic technical challenges, there's this: IT doesn't have anything that even resembles a methodology for performing the business analysis we need to figure out what it means to put consumer tech to productive day-to-day use.'"

My new iPhone has built in email contacts and calendar. I point it at our exchange server and give it my password and it "just works". "Well holy shit", says the IT dept, "that just won't do". "We can't have users looking after themselves" So they tell me I need to get "Good" mail. First I have to buy a license to use it, and then they dick around a week getting it to work. Now my email is "secure", because we just can't run the risk of the KGB finding out when I'm having lunch next Thursday, or how many meters of #6 cable we buried last week. How is this better you say? I'll tell you. Before Good, my phone would go ding, I would look at the screen and see "Meeting with Fred, 11:30, big boardroom". Now I get a ding, and my screen says "Event!" I unlock my phone, I open the Good app. I enter my Good password. I wait 30 seconds while things are decrypting. Finally the app opens fully. I push the button for calendar and see "Meeting with Fred, 11:30, big boardroom. The entire process now takes 45 seconds, where it used to take 0 seconds.

The badge for unread emails used to tell me how many unread emails I had. Now with Good mail, it increments with every new mail received. Then if I read the email on the computer, it increments again. Yes, that's right. If I receive 5 mails and read them on my computer my phone now says I have 10 unread mails. (Apparently it is not our IT dept's fault that this "Good mail app" they have forced on me sucks so bad. It's all Apples fault, just ask our IT guys, they'll tell you.)